Barbara Grice, 51, will also undergo a mental evaluation, cannot go
within one mile of a school and will be placed on house arrest if she is
released on bail. Her actions inside the school's cafeteria prompted
authorities to lock it down, causing panic to ripple through the South
Baldwin County community.

"When you have someone come into school with a loaded weapon,
threatens to kill someone, it puts everyone in fear," Baldwin County
Chief Assistant District Attorney W. Rushing Payne Jr., who requested
the $1 million bail, said following the hearing. "It's why we asked for a
high bond. We can't allow someone like this out."

Elberta police have said that she got inside the school around 1:30
p.m. after knocking on a back service door where food is delivered to
the cafeteria. A worker looked out the peep hole, didn't see anyone and
proceeded to the open the door. When the worker didn't see anyone
outside, she let the door close but Grice was able to enter.

Grice then confronted her sister, Kathy Partin, at an office inside
the cafeteria. Authorities have said the two sisters were feuding over a
domestic issue.

Isn't it wrong for the district attorney to say "We can't allow someone like this out?"

Plus the"cannot go
within one mile of a school" thing is a bit ridiculous, don't you think?

15 comments:

Yes, you're right that there are problems with both the high bail and that travel restriction. Prosecutor would be on better ground to argue that her instability means that she's more of a flight risk and that a low bail amount wouldn't secure her appearance at trial the way a higher amount would.

I guess this answers my question above as to what you were suggesting was impossible.

It might or might not be. I don't know about dense urban areas--they might have schools packed so closely together that it would be impossible. In smaller more sprawling cities in the south it would be possible In the one where I know where most of the schools are I could get around still giving them a very wide berth. In the one that I lived in during college, population 500k, I don't know where all the schools were, but I did come across several while driving around and I knew enough alternate routes that I could avoid being within a mile of those.

Additionally, if the geography required her to drive through one of these bubbles, her lawyer could file a motion to ask the judge to allow her to do so provided she didn't stop within this zone (and that is provided that the order and local laws and rules didn't already include such an allowance).

All that being said, I think a 1,000 foot bubble, or even just an order to stay off of school grounds, would be a better way to go--both for practicality and for preventing exaggerated restrictions becoming the norm.

She has already shown he ability to break the law; what makes you think house arrest will stop her from doing anything? She says she's going to church and instead enters another school. I'm sure the judge thinks the high bond will keep her in jail at least until the mental examination can be done. High bails are not to discriminate against poor people, but to keep dangerous people in jail.

Your statement:"High bails are not to discriminate against poor people, but to keep dangerous people in jail."is incorrect. If people are dangerous and the court finds the need to keep them behind bars until trial then the judge is supposed to deny bail.

If they grant bail, however, the purpose of bail is to secure their reappearance in court. Therefore, the level is supposed (emphasis on supposed--this isn't often how it happens anymore) to be set at a level that will guarantee their appearance. For you and me, $5,000, or even $500 might be enough depending on circumstances, but someone like Bill Gates would never notice the loss of such an amount, so the court should set his several orders of magnitude higher.

Prosecutors don't request high amounts with discriminatory intent against the poor (these amounts simply have more of an effect on them). Instead, they often seek a high bail to inconvenience someone who they strongly disapprove of either personally or based on their crime.

The 8th Amendment forbids excessive bail--in other words, if bail is set it is not supposed to be set at an excessive level so as to be punitive or be the same as a denial of bail.

Neither the 8th Amendment, nor the rest of our legal system, says that bail has to be granted in all cases, and it is common for a judge to deny bail if they believe there would be danger to public safety or an unacceptable flight risk. If you remember, there was some question of whether or not Zimmerman would get or keep bail before his trial.

Your suggestion of granting bail but imposing a high enough amount that the result is the same as denying bail is exactly what is prohibited in the Constitution; not my suggestion that they deny bail if she is such a danger--a straightforward decision which could be appealed.

"Prosecutor would be on better ground to argue that her instability means that she's more of a flight risk and that a low bail amount wouldn't secure her appearance at trial the way a higher amount would."